Wartime drama, exploding grandparents and sky-high fun by various authors - book reviews -

Age 9 plus:

The Swallows’ Flight

Hilary McKay

Three years after her moving First World War saga, The Skylarks’ War, won the Costa Children’s Book Award, Hilary McKay is back with a stunning and beautiful companion novel which is set to be another middle-grade classic.

A generation (and another world war) later, we meet the children of Skylarks stars Rupert and Clarry as their lives on either side of the devastating conflict’s divide are set on a Battle of Britain collision course.

Erik and Hans are German boys. They are growing up in Berlin and dreaming up schemes to make money and feeding flies to fledgling swallows on Erik’s windowsill.

Uncle Karl takes them to the aerodrome to make coffee, polish windshields and head up into the sky in gliders. Both become pilots in the Luftwaffe… unwilling participants in the battles in the sky.

Ruby and Kate are English girls. Ruby, with her birth-marked face, is trying to dodge her brother Will’s jibes, avoid evacuation to the country and keep the family shop going with her mum. Kate, who is recording every moment in her diary before it disappears, befriends her grouchy grandfather.

The girls’ mothers Violet and Clarry were such good friends and now the young girls themselves are thrown together in loneliness.

The four youngsters grow up in worlds that would never meet until war tumbles their lives together and they become entwined by a dogfight that takes place in the skies above England one September afternoon.

There are choices to be made. How is courage lost, and found? Who is really the enemy? And what does friendship truly mean in the middle of a war?

Family and friendship are once more at centre stage as McKay plays out her inspirational and thought-provoking story against a backdrop of war, suspicion and division.

In a strife-riven world where some ignored the signs of war, and others pretended they didn’t know what was going on, McKay seamlessly weaves together characters from different sides, different families, and different classes as Erik and Hans, and Ruby and Kate stand as a symbols of hope and a better future.

Written with McKay’s masterful gift for dialogue and storytelling, featuring a cast of vibrant and beautifully drawn characters, and imbued with a sense of hope, poignancy and rapprochement, The Swallows’ Flight will wing its way into every reader’s heart.

(Macmillan Children’s Books, hardback, £12.99)

Age 9 plus:

The Caravan at the Edge of Doom

Jim Beckett and Olia Muza

Surely the vision of a set of grandparents exploding inside their caravan toilet can’t be funny?

Well, it certainly is in the hands of Jim Beckett, one half of acclaimed comedy double act, Bob and Jim, and author of pretty much everything from short stories and poetry to plays and sitcoms… oh, and also an English teacher in a south London secondary school.

This multi-talented educator and entertainer is now turning his creative hand to middle grade comedy novels and the result is The Caravan at the Edge of Doom, a hilarious and heartbreaking debut featuring yes, exploding grandparents, unexpected heroes, and a truly epic adventure.